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to remember that Asa was under Elizabeth’s control, that he could become a weapon at any moment. Verlaine was right. They had to protect themselves. “How do you kill a demon?”
    Elizabeth halted midstep. She turned, looking over her shoulder at Nadia; the orange glow from her stove painted the lines and shadows of her face sharply, and strangely. “Why do you need to know?”
    “I don’t.” Nadia shrugged. “I want to know.”
    “Do you hate him?” Elizabeth said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. It was the way any other girl would say, Do you like him?
    The lie came easily: “He’s supposed to serve you, right? To serve us. Sometimes I think he forgets that. I ought to know how to deal with him if he gets . . . ahead of himself.”
    Elizabeth took her usual seat on the floor, amid all the broken glass that glittered in the dim orange light. “It involves the use of his real name, which can be powerful in certain contexts. Demons’ names are important. Also you’ll need the blood of the sea, and a dagger consecrated to whitemagic.” The confusion on Nadia’s face must have been obvious, because Elizabeth smiled. “So many things you have yet to learn. But you can learn the details later, when we get into darker magic. We cannot worry about mere nuisances when there is serious work to be done. For now, Asa is a necessary tool.”
    She nodded, like that was okay with her. Inside, though, Nadia could only think, Darker magic? Darker than working toward the end of the world? So she made her next question direct. “What’s the next step for the One Beneath?”
    “For us as His servants, you mean.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, and Nadia realized she should push no further tonight. “Next we draw Him forward. Each spell we cast toward His power will bring Him closer to the surface. Others will attempt to undo our work here tonight. We must prevent them from doing so.”
    “Undo our work? You mean, they’ll try to work against our spell? Other witches?” Weren’t all the other witches in Captive’s Sound defeated by now, or too terrified of Elizabeth to act? Nadia had always thought she had to stand against Elizabeth alone.
    Elizabeth shook her head. “I mean the works of man. They can be stopped. What we have to cast is a spell for falling apart.”
    “Falling apart? I never heard of a spell like that.”
    “Of course you haven’t. The spell is of my own creation.”
    Nadia went very still. Creating your own spells was the highest form of witchcraft—something she had neverattempted, something her mother had never mastered. It was a gift not one witch in a thousand could claim. Why wasn’t she surprised that Elizabeth was the one? “What does the spell do?”
    “On its own? Very little. But it enhances the magic we’ve already done. Intensifies its impact.”
    Could she stop Elizabeth from casting this spell? Not without giving herself away, Nadia figured. Anyway, this was only adding onto the spells they’d already cast, which so far only affected the weather. Besides—she couldn’t help feeling curious. What would an original spell feel like? How much power had Elizabeth unlocked?
    “Grounded by agate.” Elizabeth wore an agate ring, a milky-lilac circle around her left little finger. Nadia’s agate charm dangled from her bracelet, and she clasped it quickly as Elizabeth began to recite the ingredients: “Three things are needed. A woman weeping for something lost forever. A time when you were cruelly betrayed. And a time when you cruelly betrayed another.”
    The memories drawn upon for dark magic were never pleasant ones. Nadia closed her eyes, felt the ripple of magic around her as Elizabeth began, and summoned up her own version of the spell to combine with Elizabeth’s.
    Verlaine crying in the front seat of her car as she talked about the magic worked on her, the magic that had stolen her ability to be loved by anyone.
    Her mother saying, “It’s better this way,”